It's The Little Things
by Squirrel the Man
Summary: Little things that happen to Clint Barton that make him feel better about himself, followed by one HUGE thing he'll never forget. Rating because of -mostly- language.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings & Stuff:** There isn't really much plot to this... not until the end, anyway. Rated T because of language and other stuff. Mostly language. I don't own the Avengers, although if I did... Anyway, I don't own the Avengers.

* * *

Clint hated walking around New York. It wasn't because he hated the sprawling city buildings and the smell of the pollution and gasoline that always hung in the air, even though it was a far cry from the town he grew up in.

It also wasn't the amount of people that were always there, even if it did make him uncomfortable. It was easy to blend in to the city when there were a lot of people, because when you were jogging down the street you didn't pay attention to the person sitting alone at the café table reading a book.

It was, however, the people. Not the amount, per say, but just the people. Before Loki, he could walk down the street whenever he wanted to, and nobody would look at him or do anything else. He was normal, and every once and awhile he needed to feel like that. But now, the Avengers didn't trust him to walk alone, and he always went with someone else. It made him feel even more like an add-on, but there was no way to get around it. He'd already tried.

Usually, Clint went with Natasha. When the public caught sight of the now-famous Black Widow, they crowded her and demanded pictures and autographs, the usual stuff. They never noticed the shortish archer next to her, and often he found himself shoved to the side and out of the crowd, away from Natasha. He would look in her direction angrily, then comfort himself in the thought that she could handle herself perfectly well and that she didn't need him. He'd walk down the paved streets until he found a suitable café and wait for her.

He always waited, and Natasha would always find him afterwards. She'd be wearing a pleased smirk, and Clint would push aside his anger for her and smile back. However, Natasha always saw through his watery smile and would never talk about the experiences, letting the silence as they walked through the city unbroken. And if any people wanted to talk to her then... well, let's just say they went home with more, yet less that they had asked for. Certainly not in the preferable way. But Clint still hated the fact that Nat, and the rest of the Avengers -even Banner- were so well loved when he had gone through just as much if not MORE than they had. It wasn't his fault that- no, he was NOT dwelling on that.

Of course, under normal circumstances, Clint would just brush it off. Certainly, he wouldn't let it bother him, but these were anything but normal circumstances. Everyone was treating him differently, with the Avengers seeing him as fragile as shattered glass to SHIELD agents blatantly scorning him and no-one defending his honor. Of course, there were the agents who- No, he wasn't dwelling on THAT, either.

It was Phil's death that kept them separate now, Clint decided. The rest of the team -sans Banner and Thor, but they already trusted them- had gone through Phil's death together. The team had come out stronger from that event, and had gone on to become Earth's Mightiest Heroes, fighting the battles no single hero could withstand and all that jazz. Clint had just hopped along for the ride, freshly and not completely recovered from a rather severe concussion. He hadn't known about Phil yet...

* * *

_It was after the battle. After shawarma. Clint hadn't eaten anything, because he knew that his stomach wouldn't hold it very long. He hadn't had anything to eat, really, for a long time._

_Steve, Natasha, and himself were all being brought back to SHIELD, leaving Thor, Tony and Bruce alone in New York. Loki was already in SHIELD custody, but Thor planned to leave for Asgard and take Loki with him. The council wasn't pleased, but Fury didn't care. That's usually how it went down with them._

_Clint thought of his bed, and even though it was far from comfortable, it made him feel more tired than he honestly should have been. On the flight to the Helicarrier, Clint nearly nodded off twice, both times letting his head rest of Natasha's shoulder. She looked down at him and let him sleep, but he usually jolted himself awake after a couple seconds._

"_I'm keeping myself going in pure adrenaline," Clint muttered. "But still I can't sleep." He closed his eyes again._

_Natasha and Steve looked at each other meaningfully. They both knew that Fury was going to tell Clint about Phil when they got there, and they knew that it would be disastrous. Even with Phil, the recovery from being Loki's helpless slave would have been difficult, but without Phil... Natasha seriously wondered if Clint would ever be the same way he used to be. Maybe, in time, but it would take a lot of it._

_She laced her fingers in his, noting carefully the slight tremors in his. His eyes opened and met hers, and he sighed and let them flutter closed. But she knew that he wasn't asleep and was nervous about that. Why wasn't he asleep, after three days of nonstop go (and one day spent unconscious) for him. But she didn't say anything, and just held his fingers in hers._

_They arrived at the Helicarrier, and Clint sluggishly raised himself to his feet. He looked ready to fall asleep on his feet, and Natasha wasn't all that surprised when he did, crashing limply to the ground. She looked up at Steve, who gave her a wide eyed look of surprise. _

"_Can you carry him?' she asked him. Steve nodded and picked Clint up, following Natasha off the jet._

_When they dismounted, the first thing she noticed was Director Fury standing there, giving his Glare of Doom, and Clint affectionately called it, at the jet. Natasha strode up to him and said, "Before you send his world crashing down around him, let him sleep."_

_Director Fury nodded after a beat. "What happened to him?" he asked. He seemed truly concerned, and Natasha realized that, even though Clint was a pain in the ass, Fury cared about the archer. He cared enough to listen to her request, to personally oversee his return to SHIELD. She didn't know why, but he did._

"_He'll be perfectly fine, Director. But he needs sleep, and he won't get any if he's beating himself up about Phil." Director Fury's eye flashed with guilt and grief. _

"_You're right, Romanoff. We'll have to take him to a different room, though. Other agents know where his current room is and they aren't feeling particularly friendly toward Barton."_

* * *

_When Clint woke up, his arms were coated in a thin layer of sweat and his eyes were wide with fear. He'd just had a nightmare, and Clint hated nightmares. Usually they haunted him until he shared them with Phil, and this particular one was not one he wanted to keep to himself. He had dreamed that he was fighting Natasha again, in the room filled with yellow pipes and broken glass. But this time, she got closer to him before he pulled his knife out, and he managed to drive it into her abdomen with enough force that the wound was fatal. He pulled the knife out of her stomach and watched the blood drip off of it slowly._

_As he did so, a cruel laughter filled his brain and would not go away, so he was forced into a fetal position, his knees tucked up into his chest. He could hear a voice saying, "I won't touch Barton, not until I make him kill you, slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear. And then he'll wake up, just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I'll split his skull!"_

_Clint wrenched his eyes open, and saw Natasha lying in a pool of her own blood, not breathing, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. "Nononononononono!" he whimpered. He had control now, all right. But it was too late. "Natasha, don't leave me!" he begged, feeling tears prick at his eyes. He blinked them away furiously. "Natasha..." he said, and his voice broke._

"_How very touching," drawled Loki. Clint glared at him, filled with an all consuming rage. _

"_You're a monster," he spit out fervently. _

_Loki smiled that half smirk, and Clint's vision had gone completely white. That's when he had woken._

_Aw, shit. Clint needed to talk to Phil. He hadn't seen him since before the Loki incident, and he was starting to get worried. Phil had never gone this long without talking to him, unless he was on a mission and had gotten himself captured. _

_Clint opened the door, and was startled to find himself in a place he didn't recognize at all. He looked around and headed back into the room. If he couldn't find Phil, he'd wait for Phil to find him. _

_When the door hissed open, Clint expected Phil to walk in the door. Instead, the one-eyed form of Director Fury strode into the room and gave Clint his Glare of Doom._

_Clint's eyes narrowed. Now, he was starting to get edgy. "Where's Phil?" he demanded. _

_Fury didn't answer him. He waited a beat and then said, "Sit down, Agent Barton."_

_Clint stayed on his feet rebelliously. "Where's Phil?" he repeated, this time with more force._

_Sighing, Director Fury sat down in a chair near the door. "Clint..." he said softly._

_Clint fell silent. The Director never called him Clint, not even once. Something was wrong. His heart raced and his mind began to think of possible things Fury could want to tell him. But only one really stuck in his brain. _Was Phil dead?

"_Clint... Agent Coulson... is dead."_

* * *

Clint and Phil had shared a special bond, and while the others had been made stronger by his death, Clint had been made weaker. It wasn't fair, why did it all happen to him?

Phil had saved him, had pulled him up by his bootstraps when he had fallen and given up on himself. He was always there for Clint, whether it was with a small thing like a bottle of his favorite blue Gatorade to literally dragging his broken, bleeding body out of an enemy compound. Clint owed everything to Phil, but he refused to take the debt. Instead, he'd made Clint swear to always give everything his best, because that's what he owed him. A nineteen year old Clint had agreed. And now, 9 years later, Clint still upheld his end because, if anything, he was more indebted now. He had let Phil down. He had fallen again, but this time, Phil wasn't there to pull him back and tell him to get his shit together.

Now, nobody on the team except Natasha knew of the bond between the two agents. He'd even once overheard Stark shouting, "We're all upset about Phil, but none of _us_ are still moping about it!"

Tasha hadn't told him anything, and later she had approached Clint with a disgruntled-looking Stark in tow and told him that he'd have to go on his next walk with Tony. She didn't know he'd heard Tony's word, didn't know how badly they hurt him. It made him feel weak, even though he knew that everyone else thought he was because of his time spent as Loki's bitch. He hadn't made a great first impression, and he wasn't fixing it. He spent too much time punishing himself for that.

Now, at this moment, Clint grimaced. That was one _hell_ of a tangent. Of course, he wasn't surprised that he had so much time to think. Even before the Avengers, Stark had been wildly popular. He been practically leaped upon by the New Yorkers the second he set foot out of his tower. Clint, as usual, was shunted to the side, alone as always. He did what he usually did and found a nearby café to sit at.

The waitress looked out the window and saw his slumped shoulders, and decided to move towards him.

Clint looked up when he heard the door open. His eyes narrowed and focused on a woman that had just exited the café. She wore an apron, but when her gaze flickered toward the direction of the mob, Clint assumed that that's where she wanted to go.

"Can I interest you in anything, sir?" she asked politely.

Clint blinked in surprise. He wiped it away hurriedly. "I don't have anything to pay you with," he told her. Never mind that he could just get Tony to pay for it later.

The waitress nodded. "Who's out there?" she inquired, gesturing to the crowd down the block.

"That's Tony Stark," Clint muttered.

"Really? Wow!" The waitress grinned and headed back into the café. Clint assumed that she had left him and had tried to get a look at Stark. He allowed his sharp gaze to wander, immediately thinking about the time when he and Phil had come down to a home game for the Yankees. Clint smiled slightly. He still wore that contented expression when the lady came back out, this time with a steaming mug.

"It's nice to see you smiling, sir," she commented, startling him out of his pleasant daydream. Clint blinked. The waitress had placed the mug on the table in front of him and was watching him.

He wrapped his fingers around the handle and pulled it closer to himself. It was steamy, cream-covered coffee. It smelled heavenly, and the cream on top had been formed into the shape of...

A bow. Clint stared at it, at a loss. He looked at the waitress, who smiled at him like a kid who'd just met their hero. Clint blinked. He felt touched, and figured that the warmth he now felt had nothing to do with the physical warmth of the coffee in front of him. Clint said nothing, however.

The waitress winked at him. "It's on the house, Hawkeye. Just as long as you tell the others that you've got the best fanbase."

Clint allowed a smile to curve his lips. He raised the mug in a sort of toast, and drained it. He shook the woman's hand firmly, muttered 'Thank you,' and decided to end his walk and go back to the Avenger's Tower. Back home.

* * *

_Aren't fangirls great?_

_Now, I have a few ideas about more little chapters (as well as the thing that *GASP* actually has a plot at the end), but I'd like to make it longer than just what I've planned out. After a suitable amount of time, I'll post the next chapter, and during that time you should REVIEW with an idea and if I like it, I write that idea and dedicate the chapter to you, as well as link your profile in the top AN (unless you're a guest). Does that seem fair?_

**_-Shadow_**


	2. Chapter 2 (Dedicated to RivanWarrioress)

_Wow! I totally didn't expect that many people to read my story on the first day! You guys are AWESOME! Your collective amazingness has spurred me on to write/post this today. I wouldn't have done anything until next week, at the soonest. Thank you SO much!_

_I've already replied to the reviewers via Private Message, but now I shall do this:_

_Special thank yous to: __**JRBarton, Rivanwarrioress, Barton-Lover, boysmom5, cresdin, AvengerRedHuntress, ecat, and DevinBourdain, blackdog-Iz, and Maxiekat **__for following/favouriting the story, as well as BONUS POINTS to __**JRBarton**__ for following ME, as an author. _

_Also, to: __**JRBarton **__(dude, you are awesome!), __**RivanWarrioress, Qweb, and AvengerRedHuntress, and DevinBourdain**__ for reviewing!_

_ON WITH THE SHOW! This chapter is dedicated to __**RivanWarrioress**__ for suggesting the idea. Her profile can be found here: _ u/1181377/

_Just a warning, I'm using a mix of comic book story of Captain America as well as the movie, because I can and because it makes his background with losing Bucky so much more tragic than it already is._

* * *

Clint was on the roof again. He was staring down at the bustling city, watching all the people going through their lives, unaware that Clint was watching them. He was always watching, and whenever something was out of line, he could see it. That made him feel better, more important. He was actually doing something, something that didn't require talking to people, or letting them even know he was there. It was one of his strongest qualities.

Nobody bothered him when he was on the roof. Sometimes, Natasha would sit out with him, but they'd never talk. They'd just sit, looking at the people below and taking comfort in the fact that there was someone _there_, even though Phil was dead and Clint was lost.

Natasha knew. But nobody else did. Nobody else could see how lost Clint was, instead just avoiding him and doing nothing but push him farther over the edge. Today, however, was an exception.

The hatch opened. Clint heard it, heard Natasha step onto the roof and didn't move. However, he heard another set of footsteps intruding on his turf, and he turned around.

Natasha had brought Steve with her this time. Clint glared at him, unsure of what he wanted. He looked slightly nervous, either because of the roof or the angry-looking agent sitting on it.

"Clint," Natasha said, rather forcefully. "Captain Rogers is going to have a talk with you."

Clint stared at her wordlessly. He blinked, then turned his sharp gaze over to Steve. Steve hid his frightened look and changed it to an appealing one, which Clint found less preferable. He didn't say anything, and Natasha sighed and closed the door, leaving the two men alone on the roof.

Steve carefully lowered himself down onto the roof, looking down at the cars and buildings and _people_. "Wow," Steve said, quietly. "This is nice."

Clint didn't move, didn't do anything. He figured that Steve had come up here to play therapist, and Clint didn't like therapists. They always pressed him for information he didn't want to give, information he would never give to anyone except Phil.

"Romanoff told me to talk to you," Steve started, carefully watching Clint's eyes. He wanted to know how much the agent was prepared to show him, and what caught him. "She told me that I had gone through something... similar, I guess, to what you had gone through recently. She told me to tell you about Bucky."

Clint still hadn't changed anything. Steve pressed on. "She didn't tell me why, but I guessed. All those SHIELD Agents that Loki killed, one of them was different to you. Am I right?" Clint's eyes flickered, showing just a tiny sliver of pain and guilt before he covered it up again. "And I think I can guess who it was, Barton. It was Phil Coulson, wasn't it?"

Steve didn't really know what to expect. He had only spoken about two questions to the man, both of them had gotten him no more than one sentence answers. Natasha hadn't given him any warnings. What Steve got wasn't much, but coming from the sullen agent next to him, it was everything.

Clint's eyes flew up to meet Steve's, and he stared at him for many drawn-out moments before saying one word. "Yes." His voice was rough and deeper than Steve had expected, although not much. The way his face had gone ghostly still like it had proved that it impacted him, a lot more than Clint would ever admit (until years later).

Steve nodded. "There was a guy similar like that in my life, too. His name was James Barnes, but we all called him Bucky. He was my age, but taller and older-looking, and much more popular with ladies." Steve hesitated, looking at Clint. Clint was looking at the tiles underneath him, but he moved his hand when Steve stopped talking, proving that he was listening. Steve smiled.

"He enlisted before I finally got in, and before I became what I am, he was captured along with so many others by the Germans. I rescued him and the other men, in a plane flew that Tony's dad flew for me." Steve stopped again, very quietly murmuring the word "fonduing" before continuing. Clint would have to ask him about it later.

"I just barely rescued them on time. But after I did it, I felt so proud. I had saved my friend after he had helped me through my whole life. I felt real, then, for the first time. I had done something that was real.

"Some of those men, Bucky, and I became a team of our own, and we took down so many bases that we began to get famous State-wide. Captian America, and his side-kick Bucky Barnes.

"But those days never last. It was our final battle with the Red Skull. We were both on his ship as he flew it out to go bomb the States. We tried, together, to defuse them, to stop him. But I fell. I fell into the English Channel, and my thoughts as I did it were terrible. Bucky was always there to help me, and now I had left him alone, practically sitting on top of a gigantic bomb. I don't know what happened, but SHIELD told me he set it off to explode in the air, right there, and died in the blast. I let him down. I made a huge mistake, and my best friend was killed because of it."

Clint blinked slowly. Now that, that was something the SHIELD report hadn't included in Roger's file. Not the fall. They had changed it to make him look better, but now Clint knew the truth.

"Steve," he said, softly.

Steve met his gaze, slightly taken by surprise. He hadn't thought that Clint would answer him, or say anything. That one yes felt absurdly lucky to him.

"I understand. Phil saved me from my old life, and brought me to SHIELD. He did so much for me, and I did so little for him. I owe him my life, I owe him everything I am and everything I have. I'll never repay him for the great service he did for me, or the wrong I did to him." Clint fell silent. Talking, as much as denied this, helped him. It always had, but he never found anyone (except Phil) to talk to that would listen to him and understand him the way he _needed _them to. But Steve was listening to him, and thinking of something to say back to him.

"Barton, you didn't do anything wrong to Phil. I'd be willing to bet that you made everything in his life better. You gave him someone to protect, someone to fight for, and someone that trusted him beyond any trust I've ever seen before. He owes you too, Barton, and he died protecting what he believed in. There's _nothing_ wrong with that, nothing anyone could say that could make this your fault. You were the bullet in the gun, not the gun itself or the one who pulled the trigger. The fact that you blame yourself is wrong. You tried to fight it, and with Natasha's help you fought free of it. Barton, there is so much in yourself you don't see. No-one who isn't dead or made out of steel could go through half of what you've had to deal with. You're the strongest person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Don't you dare think that you are at fault." Steve blinked self-consciously.

"I think I'm done now," he muttered, and turned around to leave.

Of course, the man behind him had one more surprise in stock. "Steve, I think you should take your own advice. You know why. And it's about time that you started calling me Clint."

A warm glow enveloped Steve at that, and he turned to look at Clint. He was standing on his feet, grinning at Steve and at his amazed expression. "Clint," he repeated, his small smile widening.

Steve returned the smile. "Clint. Thank you."

* * *

_I'm sorry it isn't as long as the first chapter, but this is going to be the approximate length of these little things (See what I did there?). Anyway... They're going to be short. Hopefully frequent, but short. I'm sorry._

_As always, leave suggestions for chapters in the reviews, and I'll probably write them! Thank you, and DFTBA!_


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